Is Your Local Optimization Landing You New Customers or Leaving Them Lukewarm? – #SESNY

This afternoon I attended the panel presentation titled ” Local Myth Busters – Local Optimization Facts Proven or Debunked” which featured four very knowledgable panelists who provided a great mix of instruction and high level tactics. This session was very focused on Google Places and finding a way to stand out from your competition.

If you are responsible for local marketing or would like to begin implementing a local/mobile marketing strategy these are some tips you don’t want to miss. Below I have included what I considered to be highlights from the presentations.

When implementing traditional SEO you’re on the hunt for backlinks. When deploying a local search strategy you want to populate your “place” data among different channels in a cohesive way. Citations (or mentions of your business) are key for ranking algorithms from search engines like Google. How can you determine the value of a particular citation?

Page rank of the sub domain citation

Content and keyword density on the page

Back links to the page

Frequency of crawl on the sub URL where citation exists

Traditional SEO tactics are becoming a more important signal for local universal results. When deploying a local strategy its important that you properly optimize the following:

Consistency is key when optimizing local pages and listings across the Internet. According to Benu the 7 most important fields to optimize include:

Site URL

Categories

Business details

Reviews on third party sites

Ratings on Google Places

Photos and videos

Events and coupons

User generated content in the form of reviews can have a very positive or negative effect on a company place page. Don’t think that reviews have a significant impact? Reviews can affect your content in the following ways:

Steve provided a great series of tactics and instructions for easily optimizing your images and videos on the Internet. By optimizing your photos before uploading to Google Places you will improve your local SEO efforts.

Photo Optimization Tips

Add all 10 photos allowed on Google Places

Update these photos periodically

Save your photo with a file name that includes your business name and a keyword

Google Coupons

Implementing Google Coupons will translate into specials for your company appearing in search results. Along with improved SEO there are other benefits to implementing a Google Coupon strategy such as:

Optimizing your business for local search can be a lot of work all in its own. On top of that you also have to consider the fact that many of your customers are using a mobile device to find your information. There are some attributes specific to mobile search which include:

Users must be in close proximity to the location in order to effectively interact

The completeness of your Google Places page is essential (especially for those using Google Maps on the iPhone)

According to Campbell there are very strong correlations between rankings in Google smartphone search results. By properly optimizing your place page you will encourage more repeat visits.

Key Takaways

Optimize your place profile

Find out relevant unique categories

Optimize content on your website social network links

Facilitate your customer in leaving revewis on your site and third party sites

Optimize and maximize your use of photos and videos for Google Places

Consider the device your customers are using

What do you think? Have you fully maximized the use of your Google Places page as part of a local strategy? What have you found has worked really well, and what hasn’t? Be sure to follow us for information during the conference: @toprank, @leeodden, @azeckman, @bslarsonmn.

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Ashley Zeckman is the Director of Agency Marketing for TopRank Marketing. In addition to finding innovative ways to showcase the exceptional work of her team, she is also responsible for creating digital marketing programs that drive customer acquisition and growth for the agency. Her background includes expertise in everything from content marketing strategy to branding, account management and social media.

Outside of her role at TopRank Online Marketing, Ashley prides herself on being a great home chef, painter, prankster and dog mom.